Luxury’s High-Stakes Gamble on China’s Mini-Dramas

China’s marketers are no strangers to bold tactics, but Loewe’s Qixi campaign still caught many off guard. The LVMH brand tapped into the fast-growing mini-drama trend with a series called “Love at First Swipe” for the Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s Day in August. Short, punchy dramas released in this format have been around for a few years, but it was novel to see actors in luxurious outfits woven into a storyline promoting a global brand.

Since the format is traditionally used by mass-market Chinese brands in categories like food, homewares and beauty, it was a daring move for the Spanish house. While Loewe is not yet a household name on the mainland, it has outperformed thanks to other maverick marketing campaigns such as those foregrounding local craft and a blockbuster 2024 exhibition.

“It seems [that the rest of] fashion is still rather behind on the mini-drama front,” said Dimitra Salamouri, manager at China-focused marketing agency Dao Insights. “But I think [brands] are right to be cautious.”

Optimised for mobile phone viewing and the short attention spans of nomophobes, mini-dramas are essentially soap opera-style content in miniature. Audiences watch them on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou and other apps or streamed on platforms like Bilibili. Those created purely for entertainment typically break the narrative up into 10 to 90 episodes with each episode running between 1 and 5 minutes. Brand-produced mini-dramas, however, are often much shorter — like Loewe’s romantic series of 5 episodes running 40 seconds each.

“Short dramas remain a relatively risky experiment [for luxury fashion brands] deeply reliant on visual storytelling to communicate their brand identity. Even explaining the concept to European headquarters, for example, is no easy task,” said local fashion journalist Di Huang.

“It’s short video content that functions like a guilty pleasure — akin to eating a bag of potato chips. There may be little nutritional value or substance, but it can be tasty, even if it’s only a momentary hit. Luxury, by contrast, operates on a very different wavelength,” said Huang, extending the food analogy to high-end brands which she says must create mini-dramas that are like “a bag of artisanal chips prepared with Michelin techniques,” using storytelling that is “aspirational, layered and refined”.

Loewe’s mini-drama focused on a magpie bag charm created for the romantic holiday with the female lead leaving her charms behind only for the male lead to keep finding them. It was written by the brand’s cultural consultant for China, Qin Wen, a screenwriter celebrated for works exploring women’s life journeys for television series such as “The First Half of My Life” and “My Best Friend’s Story”.

With a well-produced narrative and respected talent in actors Chen Duling and Chen Zheyuan, the series allowed the brand to once again punch above its weight in China, says Huang.

However, reviews have not been universally positive, according to Lisa Shiqi Yu, founder and chief executive of agency Meyris Marketing, who says some viewers were confused by Loewe’s mini-drama debut. “There was some backlash. People were asking what is the brand is trying to do? Some called it weird, essentially,” she said.

Salamouri points out the relative risks of a format still in its infancy, noting that brand equity can be eroded when courting mass audiences such as mini-drama viewers. It can be especially hard for foreign brands to capture the spirit of the format—meaning it’s easier to end up with something off-brand. But whatever their risk profile, mini-dramas have become something of a craze as they’ve evolved in recent years.

The Product Placement Conundrum

Inspired by the popularity of early South Korean and Chinese mini-drama entertainment, the format evolved into even shorter bite-size clips between 2018 and 2021. From home appliances to food, local brands entered the space by commissioning or producing mini-dramas to help market their products. At the same time, demand grew from millions of people stuck indoors with ample time to look for content that helped them escape from pandemic doom scrolling. By 2022, the trend shifted toward “more mature and standardised content,” said Lisa Zhang of Daxue Consulting.

Fast food has been particularly fertile ground for viral hits, with Starbucks China’s imaginative series “I Opened a Starbucks in Ancient Times” on Douyin featuring a fictional employee opening a coffee shop in ancient China, reportedly drawing over 170 million views on social channels.

Local beauty brands were also early movers, with Proya, Pechoin and Chando all having successfully navigated the format. But according to Zhang, it is Kans that is “widely considered a leader” in mini-drama marketing. In 2023, the skincare company invested around 50 million yuan ($7 million) to collaborate with Douyin influencer Jiang Shiqi on five mini-dramas. Zhang says the series generated a total of 5 billion views and drove 3.34 billion yuan in annual GMV on Douyin. By 2024, the brand had 18 mini-dramas on the go, usually in collaboration with top actors and influencers who also released them on their accounts.

“A lot of people like the storylines [of Kans’ mini-dramas] and there’s very good engagement,” Zhang stated. Most of them have overlapping topics such as friendship groups, family dramas or romantic relationships and are related to “local Chinese lifestyles.”

But what sets mini-dramas apart from classic video ad campaigns like those from Gucci, Dior and Prada or product placement in regular TV shows like Max Mara’s deft collaborations with “Nothing But Thirty” and “Sisters Who Make Waves”?

Classic video ads function primarily as “atmosphere-driven aesthetic content” to be distributed on social channels for “brand building purposes,” explains Andrew Lam, founder of creative agency Touch LDN.

Mini-dramas, on the other hand, can live longer across platforms and tend to generate more organic engagement, especially when the content feels more like entertainment than an advert, suggested Louis Houdart, Greater China managing partner at branding agency Mad. “More traditional ads…don’t offer the same level of emotional connection or lasting engagement that mini-dramas do, and they often [generate] ad fatigue.”

Yu says there is a trade-off with mini-dramas. “In order to tap this craze, you probably have to sacrifice some brand equity. What is your focus — the plot or the brand message? If you force it, you might end up with something weird,” she continued.

There are broader challenges too. Ashley Dudarenok, founder of China research firm Chozan, said that economic pressures mean shoppers are growing wary of product placements. “Consumers are tired of this nonstop advertising and ‘buy buy buy’ culture. People are not particularly loose with their wallets [these days], so they reject very strong, blunt product placements even when it’s done through celebrity.”

Dudarenok cites stumbling blocks such as rising production costs and the intense pressure on brands to innovate given the growing competition in the mini-drama space. There are also challenges measuring their performance.

“The ROI [return on investment] on a mini-drama is even more complex than that of traditional marketing as the customer journey is non-linear,” said Dudarenok, noting that audiences can view on one platform, discuss it on another, post a review on an entirely different medium and eventually be converted somewhere else. “This is why we see fewer [brands from a corporate sector like luxury] dipping in.”

Given they often hire influencers (known locally as KOLs) to amplify the mini-dramas, luxury brands have “double the cost,” says Yu. “Not only [do] they have large production costs [including actors’ fees] but they have to pay KOLs to promote it.”

Mini-dramas may not be for everyone but they are an attractive option for marketers prioritising a wide reach. According to a report by the China Television Drama Production Industry Association, the mini-drama audience in the country had already reached 662 million in 2024.

Now that Loewe has dipped its toes in the mini-drama water, albeit with mixed results, observers are asking whether more luxury brands might experiment with the format for the next big milestone in China’s shopping calendar: Lunar New Year campaigns.

It seems likely that more brands will experiment with short dramas as part of their marketing strategies. Huang thinks the situation mirrors the early days of Xiaohongshu, when many brands hesitated to enter the social commerce platform—only for it to become indispensable a few years later. “Fashion will follow, though with its own signature emphasis on quality and sophistication,” she said.

Dudarenok predicts more interactivity and creativity in the format, following last year’s release of beauty brand SK-II’s flirtation with interactivity in its film “My Destiny, My Choice”. Those looking to better understand how mini-dramas work for the beauty industry, two recent campaigns provide some clues.

Estée Lauder and Helena Rubinstein Enter the Race

International beauty brands face stiff competition from digitally native Chinese competitors. Estée Lauder sought to disrupt this by producing a mini-drama called “Only Love.” The time-travel romance series launched on Douyin during the 520 (another version of Valentine’s Day) sales period in May.

“By reviving a fan-favourite couple from a previous hit drama, Estée Lauder tapped into couple fandom culture and festival sentiment. The lipstick shade “Tea Is This Brown” was cleverly written into the script as a symbol of love, making the product feel aspirational rather than commercial,” said Zhang. According to a report by The Drum, the campaign reached nearly 7 million views across Chinese social media, boosted Gen Z engagement and yielded a five-fold ROI. Not a bad return.

Erica Kwok, Estée Lauder’s global senior vice president, said the brand’s mini-drama debut was part of a wider mission to keep in-step with consumer interests and media habits.

“By leveraging the explosive popularity of mini-dramas and CP (couple pairing) fan culture…we were able to engage consumers emotionally and reach new audiences who may not otherwise be reachable through the conventional media mix,” said Kwok.

Some mini-dramas rely heavily on the involvement of an influencer (KOL). Helena Rubinstein’s five-episode short drama collaboration with Douyin influencer and short-form drama creator Jiang Shiqi is a case in point with “You Shine Brighter Than the Stars” launched during the 2024 Chinese New Year. Jiang has previously partnered with local brands Kans, Marubi and Pechoin for mini-dramas.

Produced by Jiang, Helena Rubinstein’s series follows Jiang in the role of a strong career woman thriving in a male-dominated workplace while navigating various challenges and chance encounters with a love interest played by Liu Haoqun. “While resisting relentless family pressure to marry, the character is determined to find true love on her own terms,” explained Salamouri.

“These mini-dramas are often commissioned by the brand, with development support, but produced and released entirely by Jiang herself, using her creative team and distinctive style — then distributed via her social platforms rather than the brand’s,” Salamouri said. “The brand team typically has input in early phases like storyline, script, or brand alignment, but the KOL retains creative and publishing control.”

While there is a tendency for luxury players to “shy away” from experimenting with this format, Helena Rubinstein’s attempt proves that “a luxury beauty brand can successfully venture into the space in different formats,” says Salamouri.

Yu agrees but cautions luxury brands against handing over too much control. “It can work better if an influencer does play a role…but for them to completely produce it can be more problematic.”